2019 was a year of change, and one of the largest changes my own business underwent was the shift from being known as The Benefits Group to rebranding as Dynamic Benefit Solutions. The difference between the two entities isn’t in name only – we’ve doubled down on our efforts to be the change we want to see in the benefits industry. Our mission, however, remains the same, and we strive to continue to build benefits plans that improves employees’ healthcare quality while creating savings from the ground up.

Here are some of the core components of what we believe a benefits plan should be:

A Custom-Made Plan

Many modern benefits plans are designed in a way that helps everyone but employers and employees. Brokers push one-size-fits-all plans onto employers and encourage them to renew each year, even though the plan may not be a good fit for the company. While many business owners value their brokers and all the hard work they’ve done over the years, most brokers only meet with employers when it’s time to renew their benefits plan. Even if they’ve been working with the company for a decade, they likely haven’t spent enough time getting to know your business to develop a plan that best suits its needs.

Your broker doesn’t have to build your plan alone, though. A benefits adviser can work with your business throughout the year, getting to know its strengths and challenges as it evolves. They can then serve as your new broker or work with your existing broker to deliver a plan that is perfectly suited for your business. This approach can save you money and provide better care for your employees, and you don’t have to say goodbye to your broker to achieve your desired results.

Making People The Priority

Your employees power your business, and they deserve a benefits plan that reflects that. Many modern benefits plans try to help companies save money at the employees’ expense, but these plans often backfire, decreasing recruiting and retention rates and lowering employee morale. A truly valuable plan will put your employees first by providing:

• Accessible, high-quality healthcare
• Affordable plans with opportunities to create additional savings
• Education to utilize the tools in their plan and make informed choices about their healthcare

My mission has always been to provide high-quality, low-cost healthcare to employees, and we reject the notion that the best way for business owners to save on benefits plans is to shift costs to their workers. By developing plans that create savings from the inside out, we hope to contribute to a change in the benefits industry that positively impacts everyone in your company.

The Power Of Teamwork

One person alone can’t create a massive shift in the way your benefits plan affects your business. Just as your plan should be comprised of a variety of tools and strategies that work together to create savings, you and your employees won’t achieve the results you desire if you rely on your broker to do all the work in developing your plan.

By acting as a consultant, your adviser can meet with your broker to help them build a plan that best suits your business. Additionally, however, your adviser should also meet with you and your employees to help everyone impacted by your benefits plan as they learn how to use the tools provided to them. In time, your plan will cease to be just another annual expense and transform into a living machine that produces both savings and great healthcare.

A Commitment To Next-Generation Healthcare

We know that one group of passionate advisers isn’t going to single-handedly fix our nation’s healthcare system. But by building plans that are tailored to business’ individual needs, put employees first, and utilize everyone’s strengths to maximize its impact, we strive to change the benefits world one business at a time.

Contact us today to learn more about how Dynamic Benefit Solutions can make your benefits plan do more for you.

A great benefits plan can significantly decrease in value if your employees continue to choose low-quality, high-cost options when seeking out healthcare. From choosing a primary care physician to searching for a surgeon for a risky operation, many people feel alone as they make big decisions about their wellbeing.

This doesn’t have to be the case for your employees, however. Healthcare advocates are trained to make the care process easier for patients, and including their services in your benefits plan can ease your employees’ concerns while giving them access to a level of care they may never have thought to seek out on their own.

Here’s why an advocate can add value to your business’ benefits plan:

An Expert in Healthcare Navigation

If a tree fell on your house, you probably wouldn’t call a roofer first. Instead, you’d contact an insurance agent who could help ensure that the repairs are covered under your plan, affordable, and done right. What happens, though, if someone needs knee surgery? For most people, the answer is to visit an in-network physician. From there, it’s their job to navigate the healthcare system and somehow find the most reliable care at the lowest cost – something that many patients either can’t or won’t bother to do.

An advocate can help patients navigate the healthcare system, taking a significant amount of stress out of a process that is difficult by default. By including advocate services in your benefits plan, you’re enabling your employees to rest easier knowing that a professional in the field will be seeking out the best quality care at the lowest cost. Your employees can then stop worrying about where and how they’ll get treated and focus on their recovery.

Rejecting the Default Option

The modern healthcare system has taught society many habits that are difficult to break. For example, many people still get MRIs done at the hospital – a decision that can cost them around $3,200 out of pocket if their deductible is $5,000. An advocate explores the possibilities beyond what a patient might choose as their default treatment options, offering alternatives such as:

• Specialized care – An outpatient center or specialist could provide the same MRI for just $500.
• Alternative locations – Traveling an additional hour to a less expensive provider can potentially slash costs in half.
• Better quality providers – Do your employees know if their doctor was at the top of bottom of their class?  An advocate will help direct patients to the care they deserve.

Searching for optimal care options is what advocates do, and the result can be massive savings and optimal care quality for your valued employees.

A Tool That Helps Everyone

Advocates don’t just help employees get the most out of their benefits – they themselves are a benefit. Better yet, your adviser can help build a plan for your business that enables your employees to get the most out of an advocate’s services. In a fully funded plan, for example, 60,000 employees may have just one advocate to share between them. But a high-quality self-funded plan may be able to provide one advocate per 5,000 employees.

The extent to which an advocate can create savings can mean that your business can save tens of thousands of dollars every year. If your employee needs shoulder surgery and an advocate can find them an outpatient center that can perform the procedure at half the cost of the local hospital, the $15,000 saved can easily justify you paying the employee’s deductible in exchange for them using the advocate’s services. Including an advocate in your company’s benefits plan isn’t just a perk; it’s a tool that positively impacts everyone involved, from the employees to the company as a whole.

Your Benefits Co-Pilot

The healthcare industry is complicated, and no one should feel like they have to navigate it alone. An advocate can act as a guiding force for your employees, helping them through the confusing and difficult steps required to get the best quality care at the lowest cost. By looking beyond the default healthcare choices many patients make, they can lead your employees to providers and treatment that can save them and you thousands of dollars, making your workplace happier and healthier.

Contact us today to learn more about how an advocate can add value to your benefits plan.

The calendar for a typical benefits plan is usually pretty unremarkable: your broker meets with you at the end of the year to discuss your renewal, at which point you can have a discussion about changes that should be made in your benefits plan. Then, you sign off on your plan for another year and don’t speak with your broker until it’s time to renew once again.

This practice has been the industry standard for years, but with a great benefits adviser, your business can depart from the status quo and, in the process, build a benefits plan that functions at your speed. By forgetting the notion that all changes to your plan have to be made at the end of the year, you and your adviser can construct a plan that evolves with your business while alleviating a source of unnecessary stress for you.

Here’s why you shouldn’t feel pressured to make all the changes to your benefits plan at a specific time of the year:

Removal of the Rush

Your benefits plan is one of your largest business expenses, and it deserves to be treated as such. Just as you wouldn’t hurry into buying a house or a car without carefully considering all your options, your plan should be thoroughly analyzed before you simply accept proposed changes to it at the end of the year.

If you feel pressured to change your benefits plan simply because your renewal is approaching, consider holding off until you feel ready to make the changes your adviser believes your plan needs. You can make changes to your plan at any time during the year, and there’s no reason to force them all to happen at one time if your business isn’t ready for them yet.

Timing That Works for You

A great benefits plan isn’t one-size-fits-all. Your adviser should be working to create a plan that’s uniquely tailored to your company’s needs, and that includes making changes when your business needs them. Making changes at the end of the year is typical for brokers who follow the traditional standards that say that the same plan can work for numerous vastly different businesses, but the truth is that you can change parts of your plan at any point during the year.

Your adviser should be working with you year-round to monitor how your business evolves. As they get to know your company and how it’s growing, they’ll be able to give you recommendations on what changes to make and when. This personalized advice can help you alter your plan the right way, avoiding risky changes being made too soon or necessary changes being made too late.

A Holiday Tradition You Can Forget

The holidays are a stressful enough time for business owners (and their employees). In addition to dealing with all of the end-of-the-year challenges for your company – one of which is your plan renewal itself – you may also be focused on staff holiday parties, employees getting eager about time off, and your own personal holiday preparations outside of the workplace. The end of the year is a busy, but exciting time, and feeling like you need to add benefits plan changes to your already packed schedule may just add unnecessary weight to your shoulders.

By avoiding the holiday business bustle, you can save your plan changes for a time before or after one of the most stressful periods of the year. Don’t feel pressured to make big decisions about your plan during a time when you should be looking forward to seeing your family and celebrating the emergence of a new year. If the tradition of end-of-the-year changes isn’t for you, you have another eleven months to make big decisions about your plan.

The Right Time for the Right Plan

Whether you feel that waiting to make changes or avoiding the wait is right for your plan, you should never feel pressured into changing your plan at a certain time of the year just because it’s how it’s always been done in the benefits industry. In fact, more customized timing can remove additional stress from the holiday season while helping you build a plan that works better for your business specifically. Like many other aspects of traditional benefits plans, the status quo for changing up a company’s plan isn’t always the best strategy, and your adviser can help you make changes when you need them the most.

Contact me today to learn more about how making changes at the right time can help your benefits plan do more for your business.

If you’ve been frustrated with the quality and cost of your current benefits plan, you may have considered working with a benefits adviser. What gives many business owners pause, however, is the idea that they’d have to terminate their relationship with their broker in order to bring an adviser onto the team. Abandoning the idea of the adviser in favor of the theoretically “safer” option of sticking with a broker may seem like the best solution in the face of uncertainty, but avoiding any kind of change altogether could keep your benefits plan permanently subpar.

Here’s why taking a risk by working with an adviser and your broker can pay off for your plan:

Same Solutions, Same Problems

Despite the fact that healthcare costs continue to go up while healthcare quality continues to go down, many employers are still willing to stick with the same broker and benefits plan year after year. In fact, Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ Health Research Institute (HRI) is anticipating a greater cost increase than ever before for 2020 at 6 percent.

These cost increases have become so commonplace in the industry that many business owners believe that the best thing they can do is ask their broker to get them the lowest possible cost increase when the time comes to renew their plan. Even though there are other options available to them, the fear of change (and losing their broker) keeps them stuck in the same benefits rut, paying more while receiving less.

Avoiding Broker Breakups

Particularly when one broker has been working with the company for years, searching for a new adviser can feel like a form of betrayal. There are ways, however, to shake up your benefits plan for the better without severing your relationship with your broker.

Your benefits adviser can work with your broker as a consultant, finding the right people to turn your plan into a strategic advantage for your business. In this case, your adviser doesn’t need to take on the job of your broker, but instead connects the appropriate healthcare industry experts to get your employees the best care at the lowest cost. Much like the conductor in a symphony, your adviser brings all of the individual players in your plan together to create something that both you and your employees can enjoy. Some employers later decide to have their adviser adopt their broker’s role in their plan anyway, but by taking your adviser on as a benefits consultant, you take more control over your broker’s involvement in your plan.

Fixing Problems From The Outside In

Some employers believe that using their benefits adviser as a consultant is a redundant use of their time. After all, your adviser should be well educated on all of the factors that comprise your benefits plan, and bringing in outside experts might seem unnecessary at first.

Beneath the surface, though, this strategy makes perfect sense when it comes to ensuring that your employees are getting the best quality care for the best possible price. In fact, many businesses already bring in outside experts to help with situations within their business. Maybe your company has an in-house legal team, but there may be certain situations in which you need an outside legal team as well. Similarly, your adviser may want to dig beyond their existing knowledge of certain aspects of your benefits plan, and by working as a consultant, they can incorporate the wisdom and experience of outside experts to maximize the impact of your plan.

The Power of Change

Although loyalty is important when cultivating relationships within your business, the solution to your benefits challenges won’t likely be found by doing the same thing with the same people over and over again. By working with a benefits adviser as a consultant, though, you can open up a new realm of possibilities for your plan. From there, the decision to move on from your broker or find new ways for them to build up your business is up to you.

Contact me today to learn more about working with a benefits adviser can be just the right amount of change to help your plan reach its full potential.

When many business owners look at how much they spend on benefits, the costs seem so astronomical that creating significant savings can seem impossible. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimated last year that employers would spend an average of $14,800 per employee in 2019, and given how healthcare costs have steadily risen over recent years, this number isn’t likely to decrease any time soon.

A great adviser can help you find savings throughout your benefits plan, and even changes that seem small on the surface can lead to thousands of dollars in savings that can lead to opportunities for growth within your business and increased employee satisfaction. Recently, one of my clients experienced this for themselves when they switched to a self-funding plan and saved big on just one employee’s prescription.

A $44,000 Decision

The high cost of prescription drugs is no secret. We targeted this as we examined how to help our aforementioned client save on their benefits plan, and we were able to source one arthritis medication (Humira) for one of their employees. This drug retails for $60,000, but we were able to reduce the cost to the employer to just $16,000, saving them $44,000 or nearly 75 percent of the original cost.

These savings also extended to the employee in question. The worker was originally going to have to pay a $150 copay, but we were able to eliminate the copay entirely. For one employee on a retail salary, saving nearly $40 a week on medication can make a huge difference.

This single instance saved both the employer and employee a large amount of money, and now, both of them can apply those savings to their own goals.

Improved Employee Satisfaction

An extra $150 a month in savings can significantly improve a person’s life, and the employer in this story now has the privilege of delivering that good news to their worker. Imagine what that employee could do with $1,800 a year in savings: pay off bills or debt, buy more gifts for their kids at Christmas, even save up for a well-deserved vacation over a couple years.

The positivity that results from this level of savings can also have a positive impact on the company by:

• Reducing turnover rates – This employee is far less likely to search for another job when they know that their current employer can essentially offer them $1,800 more per year.
• Boosting employee morale – An employee who feels like their employer is looking out for them is far more likely to be positive and productive at work.
• Attracting better talent – Offering evidence like this to other potential hires provides them with a huge reason to work for you instead of your competitors.

Businesses that look out for their employees’ best interests have far more success in keeping and attracting the kind of talent that helps the company grow.

The Opportunity for Investment

The tens of thousands of dollars the employers saved in this case can now be implemented as a strategic tool for their business. As a retail company, $44,000 can fund the salaries of one or two new hires. They can also put the money toward rewarding their employees through raises or bonuses. Investing in their employees can, again, have a positive impact on their recruiting and retention rates, potentially saving them even more money through reduced hiring and training costs.

Your adviser can work with the leaders in your business to uncover these opportunities for growth and savings. By finding even “small” ways to reduce expenses and stretch your dollars, they can prevent unnecessary benefits spending and help you turn your savings into opportunities for your business to evolve.

Simple Changes for a Huge Impact

Sourcing just one prescription drug for just one employee may not seem like it could offer a lot to a business, but our client’s experience proves that the opposite is true. By placing their trust in us, this employer saved tens of thousands of dollars while creating a better work experience for their employee. Now, both of them can use their savings for improvement and growth wherever they see fit.

Contact me today to learn more about how a great adviser can help you create positive changes that have a lasting impact on your business and the employees that help it succeed.

As renewal time rolls back around, many business owners may have found themselves frustrated once again at how much money they were spending on high-cost, low-quality benefits. Even though another year of overly expensive benefits may be the last thing business owners want to pay for, many feel like they have no choice but to stick with their contract for the next twelve months. The truth, however, is that breaking your contract early could be one of the best decisions you could make for your business this year.

While carriers aren’t allowed to break the contracts they have with benefits recipients, the reverse isn’t true. If you’re unhappy with your current benefits plan, you can break your contract and work with an advisor who can help you take control of your plan and cut costs. By examining your options now rather than waiting until your renewal, you can save tens of thousands of dollars over the course of just one year while creating a healthier, happier workforce.

A Change That Pays For Itself

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that benefits costs are expected to hit $15,000 per employee in 2019. Given that this is the sixth year in a row that costs have risen 5 percent or more, you can expect to continue paying more and more for benefits over the years if you don’t make a change.

Even if you incur costs when breaking your existing contract early, consider how much you could save in one year alone by choosing an innovative adviser who cares about building a better benefits plan for you. Between efforts to reduce direct costs (such as by encouraging employees to go to outpatient surgery centers instead of expensive hospitals) and the residual effects that result from high-quality, low-cost benefits (such as lowering costs associated with replacing employees), the savings you can get from a new and improved benefits plan can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in just a year.

The savings you glean in just months from a more cost-effective benefits plan can then be used to improve your business. Think about how updated technology, building renovations, or new equipment could help your company grow. You could also give that money back to your employees in the form of bonuses or higher wages. There are countless opportunities for growth hiding in your benefits plan, and there’s no need to wait another year to unlock them.

The Value Of Satisfied Employees

Your employees drive your business forward, and your ability to help them stay physically, mentally, and financially well is a crucial tool for your company. If you’re considering waiting another year to make big changes to your benefits plan, ask yourself how your benefits plan could positively or negatively affect your workers (and, in turn, your business).

An expensive plan that offers comparatively low-quality benefits can send employees searching for an employer who can provide them with better options. According to numbers released by the Center for American Progress, this can result in a total cost of $50,000 if you lose just five mid-level employees in a year. Think also about how likely your employees are to require healthcare for themselves or their family this year. Does the nature of their job make them more susceptible to injuries that would require surgery? Are any of them expecting a new baby? An improved benefits plan can ease the strain of a stressful time in your employees’ lives, increasing their satisfaction with their job while helping them get back to work sooner.

A Resolution That Gives Back

Just one year of an improved benefits plan can have a drastic impact on your business. By taking control of your plan, you can save your business tens of thousands of dollars while creating a better experience for your employees.

Contact me today to learn more about how leaving your old benefits plan behind can make this year your best one yet.

Even though your employees pay for and receive their benefits, traditional benefits plans often leave them with little to no control over their own plans. Large insurance companies can make workers feel like their options for treatment are restricted, and when employees do have a wider range of choices, they may not feel like they know enough about their plan to make informed decisions.

Giving your employees the power of choice can dramatically increase their satisfaction in the workplace, making it more likely that they’ll continue working for you. Your workers deserve to have control over their benefits, and giving it to them is one way to take care of them as an employer.

Here are three ways to give your employees more control over their benefits plan:

Educated Options

Giving your employees more control over their benefits isn’t enough to increase their satisfaction with their plan – they need to feel confident that they’re making the right choices. Educating your employees on their benefits options can help them make the best possible decisions rather than feeling like they’re choosing blindly.

Consider the following tools to help your employees become more educated about their benefits plan:

• One-on-one adviser meetings – Giving your workers the opportunity to meet individually with your adviser allows them to ask questions in a no-pressure, confidential setting, ensuring that they feel comfortable getting the answers they need to make informed choices.
• Easily accessible information – Consider putting information about your employees’ benefits at their fingertips. Many companies are now using digital options such as online portals and apps to allow their workers to review details about their plans whenever they want.
• Open communication – Being transparent with your employees about their plans is crucial to helping them make choices that benefit themselves and the business as a whole. Open communication builds important trust between you and your employees, letting them know that the information you provide them about their plan will help them make choices that positively impact them.

Education is empowerment when it comes to your benefits plan, and your employees deserve to feel secure in the decisions they make about their healthcare.

Financial Incentives

Making your employees feel pressured into making a certain choice about their plan can have a negative impact on their overall feelings about their benefits. Working with a great adviser that helps you save money on your plan can, in turn, provide positive incentives for your workers to make choices that impact them and you.

For example, consider the financial impact of an employee choosing an outpatient surgery center for knee surgery instead of the popular (and expensive) hospital that offers lower-quality care. Getting the operation done at the outpatient center might cost $15,000 instead of the $32,000 the hospital would charge, so offering a $3,000 bonus to the employee in question would still leave you with $14,000 in savings.

This method still gives them the opportunity to choose the more expensive option. However, even if they opt for the pricier selection, they aren’t punished – they simply lose out on a bonus. This way, your workers have true options available to them rather than feeling cornered into making a decision.

A-La Carte Benefits

Many employees under traditional benefits plan are paying for benefits they don’t use. Maybe their benefits are already covered by their spouse’s plan, or maybe specific benefits (such as vision) don’t apply to them. In any other industry, paying for unused services would seem ridiculous, but in benefits, this practice usually goes unchecked.

Instead, consider offering your employees the option of “a-la carte” benefits. Give them a set amount of money that can only be used for benefits and doesn’t go into their paycheck if there are funds left over. Then, allow them to go on a benefits “shopping spree” to allocate the money toward the benefits they actually need. Your employees will feel better knowing that the money they’re spending is being properly used rather than going to waste.

Putting The Power In The Right Hands

Your employees are the ones receiving and paying for their benefits, and they deserve to be the ones  making the important choices about their plan. By giving your workers the education, incentive, and freedom they need to make the best decisions for their healthcare, you’re making an important investment that will make your employees happier while helping your entire business.

Contact me today to learn more about how to give your employees more control over their benefits plan.

When business owners start searching for benefits brokers, many are (rightfully) focused on cost. They see their healthcare costs rising every year with no improvement in the quality of their benefits, and, desperate to save money, they decide to work with a broker who charges less for their services than competing advisers. This decision may seem financially wise in the short-term, but over time, this choice can result in missed opportunities to save money.

If you want to achieve significant savings on your benefits plan, here’s why you should look beyond your adviser’s sticker price:

More For Your Money

Benefits brokers are traditionally viewed as a necessity rather than an opportunity. Most business owners’ interactions with brokers are limited, meeting with them only when it’s time to renew their plan and signing yet another expensive contract.

Your adviser can offer you so much more than traditional brokers would have you believe. Rather than acting as a bare-bones middle-man between you and your insurance company, a great adviser can work with you to provide:

• Employee education – Your adviser can help teach your employees how to use their benefits plant to maximize their quality of care while minimizing costs to them and you.
• Supply chain management – By analyzing the healthcare supply chain at every level, your adviser can find every available opportunity to create savings for you.
• Year-round support – Your interactions with a benefits adviser don’t stop once your contract is renewed. Instead, they work with you throughout the year to adjust your plan based on the changes in your business.

A great benefits adviser may charge more than traditional brokers, but those costs will likely reflect the valuable services they offer.

Price vs. Cost

Imagine that you find and decide to work with an adviser whose sticker price is four times as high as their competitors’. You elect to work with the more “expensive” adviser, while another company in your industry selects the “less expensive” broker. Your adviser gets to know your business inside and out, strategizing with your C-suite to identify your company’s needs and examining the areas in which you may be overpaying for healthcare goods and services. They help you create direct savings, which are then funneled back into the company to help purchase new equipment and increase employee wages. Your production increases, and your employees (who are now paid more, receive better care, and feel valued by their employer) are happier at work, decreasing your turnover rates.

Your competitor, on the other hand, finds that their savings don’t go beyond what they’re paying their broker. They and their employees continue to pay more for their benefits plan year after year. They retain surface-level interactions with their broker, who continues to provide surface-level services. Funds that could have been spent on their employees or other areas of their business are instead spent on overinflated healthcare prices, and their frustrated workers start searching for other employers who could offer them better compensation for their expertise.

By looking beyond the sticker price of your adviser, you can create a chain of positive impacts that radiate throughout your business for years to come.

Service That Pays For Itself

As you meet with brokers and advisers to discuss prices and services, consider not only the services they offer, but also if the amount they save you could be even greater than what they charge. Your adviser should be working with your best interests in mind, and they should assure you of their intentions with a performance guarantee. If your savings potential aligns with their earning potential, you can remain sure that they’ll be doing everything possible to search for opportunities to save you money.

The savings you acquire from a great adviser can go beyond justifying their cost – they can essentially pay for the adviser’s services on their own. The initial price tag can encompass a variety of tools and expertise that can create savings that other brokers wouldn’t even bother to look for.

A Cost That Creates Savings

Like your plan itself, your benefits adviser shouldn’t be treated as a one-off expense. Your adviser is an investment for your business, and spending a bit more to choose the right one can lead to better service, better savings, and a better overall business. Don’t let high adviser charges steer you toward lower-quality broker services – your company deserves the very best.

Contact me today to learn more about how investing more into a great adviser can help your business grow.

Although your company’s benefits plan most directly impacts your employees, many workers are surprisingly uninformed about the details of their own plans. For small businesses, this lack of education can be the difference between big savings and big (and unnecessary) spending. If your adviser doesn’t prioritize employee education, however, your workers may continue to be kept in the dark about their own benefits – and the consequences could cost your business thousands of dollars.

When choosing an adviser for your benefits plan, here’s why you should always work with one who focuses on educating your employees about their own plan:

Rejecting The Norm

Many standards that would be considered outrageous in other industries are perfectly acceptable in the healthcare industry. For example, not only are annual increases of up to 5 percent considered “good” when applied to benefits, but employers also place their employees in charge of much of that spending. To top it off, those same employees are rarely properly informed about the best way to spend that money.

Imagine how this practice would apply to having your employee purchase a new work vehicle. They understand the basic idea of what they should look for, but don’t know a lot about cars. So, not having the tools or education they need to make the best choice, they spend a lot of money on a vehicle that looks sleek and polished, but needs repairs that they didn’t even know to look for. In fact, if they’d been a bit more educated, they could have paid a lot less for similar car in better condition at a smaller dealership outside of town.

The idea of sending your employee out on such an expensive errand with such little information sounds absurd, but employers make this exact mistake when they have their employees shop around for healthcare without knowing what they should be looking for. The more your employees understand about cost-effective healthcare, the more likely they are to make optimal choices for themselves and your business.

Empowerment Through Education

Many employees want to know more about how to make their plan do more for them, but don’t know where to start. One of my favorite anecdotes from my time as a broker was when an employee asked me, “Can I insure my husband and my boyfriend?” I laughed and told her that she could insure one of them, but not both. This story has always stuck out to me as both a humorous moment in my career and a reminder of why employee education is so important.

Like the woman in my story, your employees need to understand the capabilities and limits of their benefits plan to be able to truly make it work for them. Educating your employees about their benefits plan empowers them to:

• Make informed choices about the healthcare they receive
• Find their perfect balance of cost and care quality
• Speak up or ask questions if they have concerns about their benefits plan

Empowered employees are satisfied employees, and enabling your workers to learn more about their plan can lead them to be even happier at the workplace.

Working Together For A Better Future

Turning your benefits plan into a strategic opportunity for your business can only happen if you and your employees work together as a team. If your employees aren’t buying into the tools and strategies your adviser is trying to implement, you’re unlikely to achieve the best results your plan has to offer.

Of course, your employees can’t be expected to blindly follow your lead when it comes to their own healthcare. By teaming up with your adviser, you help your employees learn how their decisions can positively impact:

• Their savings
• Their quality of care
• The business

Like the success of your business itself, the success of your benefits plan relies on the ability of you and your employees to work together. Once your workers understand the power of their own choices, they can begin to make well-informed choices and engage with their plan to create a positive impact for all stakeholders.

Your Plan’s Most Powerful Tool

Your adviser can provide you with all the tools and wisdom at their disposal, but if your employees don’t know how to use them, your benefits plan may still fail to serve your business at its full potential. By rejecting the norm in employee involvement, you can help create educated, empowered employees that can team up with you and your adviser to achieve the best possible result.

Contact me today to learn more about how educated employees can help you build a stronger business.

Under a traditional benefits plan, your employees may be getting healthcare options they don’t need at the expense of options they do need. Most plans offer a specific set of benefits to all the recipients, and this system often comes at the expense of your employees’ health and happiness. Employers often feel like they have to settle for this approach to benefits, but a better alternative does exist.

Working with a great adviser rather than a traditional benefits broker opens up more opportunities to give your employees control over the types of benefits they receive. By allowing your workers to choose their benefits, you offer them a customized, cost-effective experience that positively affect them and your business as a whole.

A Personalized Benefits Experience

Imagine if everyday spending experiences worked the same way that they do in the benefits industry. A stranger would spend $200 on groceries for you and your family, but the items they bought for you were the same ones they bought for every other family in your neighborhood. You may not need diapers like the new parents down the street do, and, understandably, you’d probably be frustrated that the money spent on an unneeded item had essentially gone to waste.

This spending practice is just as wasteful in the benefits industry, but it’s also the norm. Rather than following the status quo, however, your benefits adviser can offer a more “a-la carte” benefits experience in which each employee receives a designated amount of money to put toward their benefits. From there, they choose which benefits they receive. If left unused, the funds can’t be funneled back into their paycheck, meaning that your employees don’t have to face the difficult choice between using that money for their health or using it for their bills.

By making the benefits experience custom-tailored to your employees’ needs, you’ll end up with a more cost-efficient plan that leaves your employees satisfied.

Paying For What’s Needed

Traditional benefit packages often take a one-size-fits-all approach, and you and your employees end up paying the price. While plans that encompass generalized benefits (such as primary care) may apply to every employee’s pursuit of better health, more specific benefits may not.

Say, for example, that your plan devotes a significant amount of money to vision benefits. This could be vital for an employee who wears glasses, but for an employee who’s had 20/20 vision their whole life, this represents valuable funds that could’ve been better spent elsewhere.

This is also a financially wise decision to make for your business. The funds you devote to your employees’ benefits should be used to keep your workers healthy, and if your employees are lacking coverage where they need it most, their health could suffer as a result. This could lead to:

• Decreased productivity
• Increased absenteeism
• Higher turnover rates
• Expensive emergency medical procedures

By allowing your employees to decide where their benefits money goes, you’re giving them the power to take care of themselves the way they see fit.

More Control, Happier Employees

Under a status-quo benefits plan, your employees’ care is placed in the insurance company’s hands. These large corporations aren’t looking out for your business or your workers’ best interests, and their one-size-fits-all approach to benefits often reflects that.

Giving your employees more control by allowing them to choose their own benefits can lead to:

• Improved financial wellness
• A better understanding of their benefits plan
• Feeling valued in the workplace

Your employees deserve the best possible care, and they have a better chance of getting it when they have the power to define what that care should look like for them. The more involved your employees are with their own benefits plan, the happier they’ll be with both the plan itself and their overall work experience.

Choices That Count

Giving your employees the power to choose their own benefits is a decision that provides them with a better experience while also having a positive impact on your business. A personalized benefits plan gives your workers the care they need while ensuring that your money is going where it’s needed most.

Contact me today to learn more about how a customized benefits experience can do more for your business.